Category Archives: Art, Black Men, African American, Artist

Ajuan Mance, Art, Black Men, African American, Artist, Black Men, Hospital, Oakland

1001 Black Men #681

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The clientele and the employees at Kaiser Oakland are a true reflection of the ethnic and cultural diversity of this city. This brother was talking to the person in front of him while he was waiting in line at the pharmacy. The person to whom he was speaking, an elderly Korean woman, seemed polite but a little unsure. I tried not to eavesdrop, but he was speaking pretty loudly, and I couldn’t help put pick up the occasional word or phrase. The conversation was all over the place, from the pain in his shoulder to his workout regimen to professional basketball. I’m not sure she cared about any of what he was saying, but it seemed that she was choosing the mild inconvenience of pretending to be interested over the awkward discomfort of asking him to please shut up.

Ajuan Mance

Ajuan Mance, Art, Black Men, African American, Artist, Black Men, Cafe, Emeryville

1001 Black Men #680

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This gentleman and I have a lot in common. Like me, he can fall asleep just about anywhere, apparently with little prompting. I spotted him at the Starbucks at the East Bay Bridge Center shops. I’d stopped in for a trenta-sized iced tea. This particular Starbucks is one of the busiest coffee houses in the area, and it might seem to be a terrible place for a nap; but for those of us who can sleep through just about anything, the bustle and chatter make for the perfect white noise lullaby.

Ajuan Mance

Ajuan Mance, Art, Black Men, African American, Artist, Black Men, Oakland, Shopping

1001 Black Men #679

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I like using floral backgrounds for the men that I draw. For example, the vintage roses in the design of this wallpaper remind me of the historical context to which each of my drawings is a response. In addition, the flowers both refer to and offer contrast with the setting in which I saw the subject of this particular drawing (Home Depot).

Ajuan Mance

Ajuan Mance, Alternative Press Expo, Art, Black Men, African American, Artist, Bearded Men, Beards, Black Men, San Francisco

1001 Black Men #678

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I met Roy Miles at the Alternative Press Expo, back in October. He stopped at my booth and chatted with me for a while. I explained my 1001 Black Men project, and he let me snap a photo for later use. It was only later that I would learn that he was a puppeteer, toy designer, musician, and filmmaker. Whenever we cross paths I feel energized and inspired.

Ajuan Mance

Ajuan Mance, Art, Black Men, African American, Artist, Black History, Black Women, Octavia Butler

1001 Black Men …and Three Black Women: Octavia Butler

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In late summer of 1995, I read Octavia Butler’s Kindred. In the summer of 2001 I set out to read all the rest of Butler’s novels. I started with Dawn, the first in the Xenogenesis trilogy, and then I read the novels of the Pattermaster series. I went on to Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, and–finally–I read Butler’s short story collection, Bloodchild.

I did a lot of my reading on the treadmill, over meals, and waiting to check out at the Berkeley Bowl, the grocery store with the longest lines in the Bay Area.

As I made my way through Butler’s startlingly impressive body of work, my thoughts kept returning to the two friends–also Black women–who introduced me to her writing. Although I didn’t read any of her work until years later, it was Camille Brewer’s enthusiastic recommendation of Kindred (“grrrrrrl, it’s deep“) that launched me down the path.

And when I got to that moment in Mind of My Mind, I finally understood why Michele Berger had spoken about that book with such enthusiasm, so many years before.

In 2005, when Butler published Fledgling, her very last novel, my partner purchased it right away. I didn’t read it at first, believing that I wanted to read the rumored third installment of the Parable series before moving onto her latest work. And then, in 2006, Butler died. There was no third novel in the Parable series, and there never would be. I immediately read Fledgling, partly to get a sense of where the writer’s creative imagination had taken her in the last years of her career. It has since become a regular part of my African American literature courses.

With any luck, some scholar somewhere will unearth one last unpublished manuscript, and we’ll all be able to take one last journey into the mind of Octavia Butler, one of the greatest science fiction writers of our time.

Ajuan Mance

 

Ajuan Mance, Art, Black Men, African American, Artist, Black History, Black Women, Lucille Clifton

1001 Black Men … and Three Black Women: Lucille Clifton

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Lucille Clifton was one of the most highly regarded poets of the last half-century. Her career spanned most of the last fifty years, with her work only growing stronger, more imaginative, and more profound over time.

When Lucille Clifton died in 2010, I was stunned, not because I was unaware of her health struggles over the years, but because it never occurred to me that I would never have a chance to meet her. Her work was such a significant part of my life for so long that she felt like a friend.

I first encountered Lucille Clifton’s work back in the 1970s, when I was in elementary school. When I was a kid, my mom took me to the library almost every week, and one day she brought home one of the books from Clifton’s Everett Anderson series. These wonderful picture books revolved around the life of young Black boy, and in the 1970s, books depicting Black children were few and far between. We read all of the Everett Anderson books, or at least all of the ones that were published while I was still young enough to appreciate being read too. That, however, was the extent of my knowledge of Clifton’s work until I was in college.

Imagine my surprise when, in my sophomore year, the poet C.D. Wright introduced our creative writing class to Clifton’s poetry. There was little of the children’s-book-writing Lucille Clifton in the work of the poet Lucille Clifton. Her poetry was edgy, audacious, unflinching, and adult. And when it came to her numerous poems about religion and myth, her work was both sacred and impious, often simultaneously.

Clifton also wrote extensively about motherhood, friendship, marriage, and ancestry; and all of her poems vibrated with an undercurrent of love and wonder–for the women figures so often overlooked in the ancient texts of world religions, for her life’s journey as mother-wife-daughter-sistafriend, for her ancestors both named and unnamed, for the curiosities and wonders that the world has to offer, and for Black people.

I was thrilled to discover this additional dimension of one of my favorite childhood writers, and Lucille Clifton and her poems became regular reading for me during the remainder of my undergraduate years.

Clifton became an even more central part of my life in graduate school. She figured prominently in one chapter of my dissertation (and later in my book, Inventing Black Women); and one of her poems became my daily inspiration during that hectic last year of my graduate program. I was teaching in the Women’s Studies program at the university, I was applying for academic jobs, and I was finishing my dissertation. It was one of the most stressful periods I’d ever experienced, and I needed all the support I could find. Some time during the fall of that year, I posted one of Clifton’s poems on the wall above my computer:

hag riding

why
is what i ask myself
maybe it is the afrikan in me
still trying to get home
after all these years
but when I wake to the heat of morning
galloping down the highway of my life
something hopeful rises in me
rises and runs me out into the road
and i lob my fierce thigh high
over the rump of the day and honey
i ride i ride.

During that make-or-break year in my academic life, this poem was a daily reminder of my own power and persistence.

Throughout the 19 years since I completed my Ph.D., Lucille Clifton has been a staple in my teaching. I have taught her poems in classes both on and off the campuses where I’ve worked, at writing workshops, and even at churches. And when I was called to speak at my grandmother’s funeral service, Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me” provided me with the right words.

In creating this drawing of Clifton, I encountered her poems anew, through the eyes of other people who love her work. Sometimes, when you are really, truly touched by a book or a body of work, it can feel like it belongs only to you. But, browsing through the many blogs and websites on which Clifton’s most loyal readers have paid homage to the poet and her words, I have come to enjoy the other side of truly appreciating a writer–the community of her fans.

***

For a literary biography of the poet, with detailed information about her faculty appointments, awards, and award nominations, along with a full bibliography of her publications, check out the Lucille Clifton page on The Poetry Foundation website.

Ajuan Mance

 

Ajuan Mance, Art, Black Men, African American, Artist, Black History, Black Women

1001 Black Men … and Three Black Women: Anna Downer

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Although the title of this online sketchbook is 1001 Black Men, I wanted to share with you three pieces that I created in memory of some of the African American women whose talent and courage have inspired me every day.

The first is Anna Downer. Born and raised in Connecticut, she worked her way up to the status of Head Stewardess on the S.S. Arctic, a 2800-ton steamship in the Collins Line, widely believed to be the most luxurious cruise line to be based in the U.S.

On September 27, 1854, the Arctic collided with the French steamship S.S. Vesta. The iron-hulled Vesta tore a hole in the wooden-hulled Arctic, and over the next several hours, the Arctic sunk, killing every woman and child onboard. The only survivors were men, and most of those were on the ship’s crew. Anna Downer was among the casualties but, as the ship’s captain reported after his rescue, she died a heroine. When he encouraged her to leave the ship and board one of the lifeboats, she refused, saying, “Captain, I am willing to pump as long as I can work my arms!”

Ajuan Mance

 

Ajuan Mance, Art, Black Men, African American, Artist, Black History, Black Men, In Memoriam

1001 Black Men #676

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From the CNN.com obituary by Douglas Hyde:

Jim Kelly, who parlayed his martial arts skills into a successful but brief career in action movies, has died. He was 67.

Kelly’s former wife Marilyn Dishman told CNN that the actor died Saturday of cancer, but did not elaborate.

Kelly worked as a martial arts instructor in Los Angeles when he was tapped for his first role in the action movie, “Melinda.” But he is best known for his work in the 1973 Bruce Lee film “Enter the Dragon.”

Kelly’s appearance in the movie was brief — fans lamented he was offed too soon — but his electrifying Afro, lanky 6-foot-2 frame and his wisecracks left an impression.

Producers came calling. And he capitalized on the attention by taking on the title role in “Black Belt Jones” the following year. A spate of other roles followed throughout the 70s, most notably “Three the Hard Way,” but then dried up.

In later years Kelly took up tennis professionally, becoming a ranked player on the USTA senior circuit.

“I never left the movie business,” Kelly told The Los Angeles Times in 2010, when a retrospective DVD set of his movies came out. “It’s just that after a certain point, I didn’t get the type of projects that I wanted to do.”

Ajuan Mance

Ajuan Mance, Art, Black Men, African American, Artist, Black History, Black Men, In Memoriam

1001 Black Men #675

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From “Remembering Amiri Baraka with Politics and Poetry” by Annie Correal (New York Times):

Mr. Baraka, born Everett LeRoy Jones, and later known as LeRoi Jones, was by turns a Beat poet, a fiery playwright, a strident follower of Malcolm X, a Muslim and a Marxist.

Those who spoke praised Mr. Baraka’s passion, his persistent vigilance over the politics of Newark, and his grit, even as they tried to reconcile his tumultuous past.

In his eulogy, Mr. West called Amiri Baraka “a literary genius,” who wrote his way into the mainstream yet, “at the same time, was willing to reject the white establishment and say, ‘I am going to raise my voice.’ ”

“  ‘If you reject me,’  ” he added, invoking Amiri Baraka, “ ’I’m going to be in solidarity with the wretched of the earth.’ ”

Mr. Baraka was widely praised for his work, notably “Blues People: Negro Music in White America,” a 1963 historical survey of black music, and the 1964 play, “Dutchman,” which won an Obie Award. However, in the course of his six-decade career, critics accused him of being homophobic, misogynistic and anti-Semitic.

In 2002, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, he performed a poem widely perceived as anti-Semitic, “Somebody Blew Up America,” in which he suggested Israeli leaders had prior knowledge of the attacks. To oust him as New Jersey poet laureate, state officials eliminated the post. His relationship with his birthplace was often a troubled one.

The former mayor of Newark, Sharpe James, said after the services, “He was our challenger in Newark. He was our agitator for progress.”

Ajuan Mance